Preventing online fraud.

Bitcoin Malware

Bitcoin, and other crypto-currencies, seem to be the way technology is heading. It’s changing fast. And of course this has spawned a new breed of malware from people wanting to steal from you.

There’s some malware called CryptoShuffler that gets installed on your computer. Then it sits there monitoring your computer’s clipboard.

One day when you want to transfer Bitcoin (e.g. to make a purchase), you might copy and paste an address. The CryptoShuffler malware detects a Bitcoin address in your clipboard, then it gets to work.

The destination address is silently changed to the address of the hackers running CryptoShuffler.

When you paste the address in your transaction, you’re pasting the wrong address. Most people won’t realise this. The transaction goes ahead, and the hackers get your money. You won’t realise until you start to question why your transaction didn’t go as planned, but then it’s too late.